First Look: Sienna Miller in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"
Why is it that Sienna Miller has had quite a successful and diversified stage career, but can't seem to break from the suffering wife roles that have marked her film work? Miller always gives these roles more than they ask of her, so you would think she would be given a role with more narrative heavy lifting. This year, she got to flex a little more muscle in The Lost City of Z (out on DVD next week) within the trope, giving the film its haunting final note.
Miller's next stage role is a similar suffering wife, but of the iconic sort: she will be playing Maggie in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in London's West End beginning next week. Miller joins a growing list of actresses like Scarlett Johansson and Anika Noni Rose that have played the role in recent years - this play never seems to go away. Unbroken's Jack O'Connell plays her closeted husband Brick. Take a look at Miller in rehearsals and muse on her career in the comments.
Reader Comments (22)
I have no reason to dislike Sienna Miller. That being said, every time she gets a role, I know the film is going to be a solid C/C+
I mean, how many supportive/long-suffering wives has she played by now?
I really like Sienna Miller who has definitely come along as an actress and rather be known as some arm-candy for some hot actor.
When will she happen.
She needs to close her legs to married men. She is not memorable. Never.
I thought she was spectacular in Lost City of Z, but lord has she been trapped in that archetype. Maggie's such a great part, I hope this inspires casting directors to use her more inventively.
She has been "happening" since the mid-2000s.
I've never understood the amount of vitriol she seems to inspire. She's talented, but rarely gets the right role/project.
Miller has been pretty great before, but the movies are either too messy otherwise (Factory Girl) or way too small (Interview/The Edge of Love) to help her career. Hard to tell if she's not being offered the right parts or if she isn't that great at choosing projects. The reaction to her from the public though has always reminded me of the weird visceral hate that people have for Blake Lively. Like they deserve to be punished/shamed or something. Come across as a little gross. Personally, I wish her the best if only to spite those people.
I've long felt that she was one of the most underrated actresses of her generation...even in Alfie, when she comes on the screen, she sparks! She has immense charisma. Her performance in Interview is stunning.
In some ways she screwed herself with a terrible personal life that got way too much attention.
Isn't she primarily known for affairs with men already in relationships?
What career?
I thought she was great in ALFIE, and was downright amazing in INTERVIEW with Steve Buscemi and in FACTORY GIRL, playing Eddie Sedgwick.
Perfectly competent actress, but she's never done it for me. There's just no spark there. Of course the suffering-wife thing doesn't really help in that regard.
That said, I don't understand the vitriol, either. All I can muster up is indifference.
Count me in as a fan of Sienna Miller. Agree that she deserves much better roles for the kind of range she displays in screen appearances from Factory Girl and High-Rise to TV's The Girl (her facial expression before and after Toby Jones' Hitchcock yelled "Cut" was everything).
Does she sing too? Maybe she needs to appear in musicals? Or start appearing in films of Noah Baumbach, Jim Jarmusch, Sofia Coppola, Kelly Reichardt or Pedro Almodovar.
Jack O'Connell is WAY too young (or at least too boyish looking) for the role of Brick. Unless he puts up a load of muscle and the make-up department works a few extra layers to give his face maturity, I am hard pressed to think he'd be convincing as an ex-football player, especially opposite Miller, who is almost 10 years his senior and looks like she is in her 40s when she's not dolled up for the red carpet.
Who plays Big Daddy?
@Peggy Sue
Colm Meaney will play Big Daddy.
http://www.whatsonstage.com/west-end-theatre/shows/cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof_124899/?cid=show-console
I just found out that Hayley Squires is in this new production too as Mae. I have grown to love this actress since I saw her in I, Daniel Blake.
I am indifferent toward her in general. But yeah lately she really captured my attention in THE GIRL (snubbed by the Emmy) and surprisingly, High-Rise.
And there's a rumor now that she's dating Brad Pitt just so you know.
She's gorgeous but kind of in a generic way, and playing the same kind of parts over and over doesn't help any one performance stand out. I thought she was good with what little she had to do in American Sniper and was...fine? I guess?...in Factory Girl. But I just recently saw High-Rise and totally forgot she was in it until mentioned here. Even now I can't picture her in it.
"Miller always gives these roles more than they ask of her"
Does she though? I will never forget her part in American Sniper, however, because her one big scene of her receiving a phonecall and breaking down in the street, the music swells and you don't even get to hear her talk or cry.
Owl -- Thanks!
Sienna, O'Connell and Meaney? I'll pass.